[SETUP] Birth of a Killer

[callforjudgement]

Birth of a Killer

• 10 Vanilla Townies
  
• 2 Mafia Goons
  
• The game starts out Nightless.
  
• When only one scum is left, the scum gain a kill and the game goes into a normal Day/Night cycle from then on.
  
• The Day/Night cycle starts at a place that forces the player count to an odd number: if scum is lynched leaving an odd number, the game goes into Day, if scum is lynched leaving an even number, the game goes into Night.
  
• Scum kills, once available, are compulsive.

Assuming I've done the calculations correctly, EV should be 49.74% to town. Some other sizes:
5:2 30.79%; 6:2 36.67%; 7:2 40.58%; 8:2 44.34%; 9:2 47.07%; 10:2 49.74%; 11:2 51.79%
9:3 36.75%; 10:3 39.75%; 11:3 42.33%; 12:3 44.62%; 13:3 46.65%; 14:3 48.47%; 15:3 50.12%; 16:3 51.62%

I think this general idea has an interesting flow to it. The swing inherent in Nightless games is reduced because scum's faster kills after a correct lynch in Nightless prevent town gaining mislynches as a result (in fact, they typically lose them). It also ensures that town have a scumflip to go on once the unrestricted killing starts, and they start losing their best scumhunters to the scum nightkill.

It may be that an EV lower than 50% is correct for this style of game; it would have to be determined by experiment. Traditionally we used to aim for EVs a little over 40%, but I suspect that's too low; running the setup at 7:2 may therefore be interesting. (10:2 is also interesting, though, because it matches the old, old standard for vanilla games, often run under the name "mountainous". As such, this setup could be seen as a fix to the old Mountainous setup, which proved to be very scumsided in practice.)

[BuJaber]

This is a cool idea but I don't think 2:10 is balanced.

If scum have their kill from the start, town can mislynch 3 times safely.

3 days in a row of catching 0 scum with the full potential info that NK could give.

In my mind this version could only be worse for scum.

[callforjudgement]

2:10 and 2:11 vanilla have both been run several times on this site.

Town has

never

won either setup. They're that scumsided.

[Something_Smart]

Maybe balanced in theory, but I don't think it's a good idea to encourage bussing this strongly...

[Awoo]

2:10 and 2:11 vanilla have both been run several times on this site.

Town has

never

won either setup. They're that scumsided.

Are people still spreading that lie?

While cul de sac is not strictly vanilla, the hoods only really helped scum in this game. (math got pocketed lmao )

[callforjudgement]

Thanks for showing me that. The game in question is a) recent, b) not marked as vanilla-only, c) not marked as over. So it'd be quite surprising for players who weren't there to know about it.

I guess this brings town's win rate for 2:11 closer to the theoretical estimates, although it's still much lower.

It's not an exact fit with a vanilla game because a) the nieghbourhoods may affect scumhunting and b) the unusual mechanic causes strategy discussion, which may affect how easy players are to read. But it's close enough.

(It's also worth noting that 2:7 vanilla has been won several times, but I'm not convinced that removing the townies actually hurts town, because it gives scum fewer chances to get rid of strong town voices.)

[RadiantCowbells]

I think 2:5 with even 2 strong villagers would be pretty hard for scum

[Lycanfire]

[*]The Day/Night cycle starts at a place that forces the player count to an odd number: if scum is lynched leaving an odd number, the game goes into Day, if scum is lynched leaving an even number, the game goes into Night.

This should be backwards no? Scum bus d2, enter night on evens, shoot for odds and they unlock the nightkill while removing a full game day.

[Awoo]

Thanks for showing me that. The game in question is a) recent, b) not marked as vanilla-only, c) not marked as over. So it'd be quite surprising for players who weren't there to know about it.

I guess this brings town's win rate for 2:11 closer to the theoretical estimates, although it's still much lower.

It's not an exact fit with a vanilla game because a) the nieghbourhoods may affect scumhunting and b) the unusual mechanic causes strategy discussion, which may affect how easy players are to read. But it's close enough.

(It's also worth noting that 2:7 vanilla has been won several times, but I'm not convinced that removing the townies actually hurts town, because it gives scum fewer chances to get rid of strong town voices.)

Yeah sry I don't mean to be rude. But I was a part of history X)

[BuJaber]

2:10 and 2:11 vanilla have both been run several times on this site.

Town has

never

won either setup. They're that scumsided.

These statistics have always surprised and scared me.

But anyway, like I said, I really like the concept, but my opinion is town is too big. In general I don't think setups should be changed to give town greater win rates, I think that responsibility should fall on townies to try to improve.

[callforjudgement]

[*]The Day/Night cycle starts at a place that forces the player count to an odd number: if scum is lynched leaving an odd number, the game goes into Day, if scum is lynched leaving an even number, the game goes into Night.

This should be backwards no? Scum bus d2, enter night on evens, shoot for odds and they unlock the nightkill while removing a full game day.

And play an 8:1 in which town can quite possibly deduce that scum were bussing D2?

8:1 is a horrible setup for scum. Even just random voting is likely to catch them by chance, and in this situation, there'll be associatives too.

In general, it's in scum's interest to survive as long as possible, despite having their kill unlocked. Bussing early just means you end up as 1 scum against a large number of townies and will probably die to PoE or by chance.